Protecting our water quality

2018 Montana Forestry Best Management Practices Audit Team reviews logging projects

Ken Reed, State Forestry Lead, BLM Montana/Dakotas State Office

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the largest contributor of water quality problems in the United States.

In 1987, the Clean Water Act (CWA) was amended to require states to develop plans for controlling nonpoint sources of water pollution. Montana’s Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Program and corresponding NPS Management Plan were established shortly thereafter. 

To achieve the goals and objectives of this plan, the State of Montana developed the timber harvesting Best Management Practices (BMP) and Stream-Side Management Zone (SMZ) law to protect water quality from logging activities.

The State next developed an interdisciplinary audit team to evaluate logging project impacts to water q

uality to ensure that the BMPs and SMZ law are adequate to protect water quality. This audit team is made up of volunteers from the federal government, state agencies, forest product industry and the conservation community. The team includes foresters, hydrologists, logging, road, fisheries and soils specialists. This Montana BMP Audit Team is a model being utilized by other western states to monitor impacts from logging projects on water quality.

Every two years participating agencies and private landowners provide the state with a list of projects completed since the last audit and that meet the minimum size and volume harvested requirements. Projects are randomly selected from this list for audit. The team looks only at activities that could impact water quality and doesn’t review things like the silviculture treatment, reforestation, or noxious weeds.

Three different audit teams evaluate projects across the state and consolidate their results into one semi-annual report. The results are separated and scored into three ownership categories: federal, state and private. The state legislature uses this report to determine if more regulations are needed or current logging BMP and SMZ regulations are working to protect water quality.

The team couldn’t look at every acre but randomly selected a portion of each project to review prior to entering the project area. The team concentrated its review on road construction and maintenance; the installation of culverts and drainage control features; skidding, landings, and slash treatment; and whether the SMZ law was implemented correctly.

The Eastern/Central Audit Team was led by Don Kasten, a retired Bureau of Indian Affairs Forester with 35 years of experience in logging and forest management.

The team documented some minor departures from the BMPs and SMZ law, but these departures resulted in only minor short term impacts to streams and water quality. Based on the 2018 East/Central Audit Team results, it appears the BMPs and SMZ law are working to protect water quality. Don explained that scores were not great when the BMP’s and SMZ law were first implemented but have improved as the foresters and forest product industry becomes accustomed to implementing the requirements to protect water quality.

The East/Central BMP Audit Team visited numerous logging projects across multiple land ownerships throughout Central Montana. After driving through miles of dense dead and dying forests to reach these timber harvest projects, seeing the recently treated forests and documenting impacts to water quality made a very positive impression about the timber management being completed across the state.